Translator’s note: The National Constituent Assembly of France passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy on July 12, 1790 to subject the French Church to the Revolutionary government. This was the first act of the Revolution to meet with serious resistance. Even before the Constitution, religious orders had been abolished and ecclesiastical property seized by the state; now dioceses were merged or suppressed and the clergy were to be elected by the people, whether Catholic or not. Meanwhile King Louis XVI and Pope Pius VI corresponded to discuss the contents of the Constitution, since the King was under pressure to give his royal assent.
In October, Dominique Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld (the Archbishop of Rouen) and Jean de Dieu-Raymond de Cucé de Boisgelin (the Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence), together with some thirty other bishops, wrote to the Pope with an overview and criticism of the main points of the Constitution. The King finally yielded and gave his assent on December 26.
The Constitution required all the clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to itself and to the Assembly. Bishoprics and curacies were to be considered vacant until their occupants took the oath. The majority of the clergy refused. Among the minority was the notorious Talleyrand, the bishop of Autun, who had been a leading proponent of the Constitution in the Assembly.
The Pope gave his definitive reply to Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld and the other bishops on March 10, 1791 in the brief Quod aliquantum translated here. He forcefully condemned the Constitution and the oath and gave principles for resisting the revolutionary incursions upon the Church. This document is important not least because it is cited by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2109) to explain that religious freedom must be limited by respect for the just public order, which is not to be “conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.”
The original text was taken from Recueil des allocutions consistoriales, encycliques et autres lettres apostoliques citées dans l’encyclique et le syllabus du 8 décembre 1864 (Librairie Adrien le Clere & Co.: Paris, 1865), 2nd ed., pp. 44-108. The text can also be found in Italian on the website of the Holy See.
March 10, 1791
BRIEF
Of Our Most Holy Lord Pius VI to His Eminence Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, to the Illustrious Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, and to the Other Prelates of the French National Assembly, Regarding the Civil Constitution of the French Clergy
PIUS PAPA VI
We now give a reply, beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, which We had been obliged to put off somewhat, on account of the gravity of the matter itself and of the great excess of urgent business, to the letter of October 10 that was given to Us, to which the names of many of your notable colleagues were subscribed. That letter renewed in Us that huge grief, unrelieved by any consolation, which We had already felt from the time when We had heard that your National Assembly, convened to order the affairs of the public economy, had progressed so far in its decrees that it was attacking the Catholic religion; for very many of its members were already conspiring and invading that sanctuary.
From the beginning We judged that We ought to keep silent concerning these heedless men, lest they become more irritated by the voice of truth and rush even further into worse things. We maintained this silence of Ours on the authority of St. Gregory the Great, who says, “Times of vicissitude are to be considered discreetly, lest when the tongue ought to be restrained, words flow out uselessly.”1 Yet We turned Our words to God, and immediately We enjoined public prayers to be said, so that We might bring these new proposers of laws into such a state of mind that they might wish to retreat from the demands of the wisdom of this world and return to the counsels of our religion and persevere in them. In this We followed the example of Susanna, who, as St. Ambrose explains, “did more by staying silent that she would have had she spoken: for, by keeping silent among men, she spoke to God; she spoke with her conscience where her voice was not heard, nor did she seek the judgment of men for herself who had the testimony of the Lord.”2
Furthermore, We did not fail to convene Our brethren, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, in consistory on March 29 of last year, and to make them aware of what those men had already begun to do in your country against the Catholic religion, and once We had communicated to them the sharpness of Our pain, We likewise brought them into the company of Our tears and entreaties.
While We were intent on this, suddenly it came to Our attention that a decree had gone out around the middle of July from the French National Assembly (by whose name We always understand only the prevailing majority) that, while pretending in title to be a civil constitution of the clergy, in truth amounted to disturbing and upending the very sacred dogmas and most secure discipline of the Church. It abolished the rights of this first See, of bishops, priests, regulars of both sexes, and the whole Catholic communion; suppressed sacred rites; seized ecclesiastical incomes and estates, and finally caused such calamities that could not be believed if they were not confirmed by experience itself. When these facts had been related to Us, certainly We could not but recoil at reading them, and the same thing happened to Us as once happened to Our predecessor Gregory the Great, who, when he received a book for recognition from the bishop of Constantinople and scanned the beginning pages, he declared that he found in it the manifest poison of wickedness.3 Hence Our mind had been thrown into the greatest grief, when suddenly toward the end of August the petition of Louis, Our most beloved son in Christ and most Christian king, was announced to Us, by which he zealously urged Us by Our authority to approve, at least per provisionis modum, five articles decreed by that Assembly and already confirmed by his royal sanction. But although We saw that those articles were opposed to the canonical rules, nevertheless We judged that We should reply to the king more mildly, saying that We would put the articles before a congregation of twenty Cardinals for examination, each of whose opinions We busied Ourselves with understanding one by one and considering according to the weight of the matter. Meanwhile by Our familiar letters We exhorted the king to persuade all the bishops of the realm to disclose their sentiments to him candidly, and to propose to Us accurate rationales on which they all agreed for their plans, and to make plain to Us whatever escaped Our notice across such a distance, so that We might not fall into any error of conscience. Yet still no such explanation of yours has reached Us for what has been done, though there have arrived some bishops’ pastoral letters published in print, sermons and warnings full of the evangelical spirit, but these were written singly by their authors, and they do not indicate any consideration of what We ought to do, which this great necessity and extreme danger in which you find yourselves demand.
Even so, not long ago there came to Us your handwritten exposition on the principles of the constitution of the clergy, which We later received also in print, in whose preamble are found ample extracts from the many decrees of the National Assembly, with many criticisms concerning the invalidity and wickedness of the same. At the same time, a recent letter of the king himself came to Us, in which he asked Our temporary approval of seven articles of the National Assembly, almost identical to those five articles he had sent to Us in August. And in the same letter he indicated that he was constrained to give his sanction to the new executive decree of November 27, by whose order bishops, vicars, parish priests, rectors of seminaries and others carrying out ecclesiastical offices were to swear within the prescribed time before the general council of the municipalities to uphold the constitution, and if they would not do so, they were to be punished with the gravest penalties. Yet as before We already declared that We in no way wish to state Our judgment concerning these articles until at least the majority of the bishops have openly and distinctly told Us what they think, We now also resolutely repeat and confirm this decision.
While the king himself asked Us, among other things, by Our exhortation to bring metropolitans and bishops to consent to the suppression and division of metropolitan churches and bishoprics, and also to allow, at least provisionally, that the canonical forms henceforth observed by the Church in the erection of new bishoprics now be done by the authority of metropolitans and bishops, and that they should offer the appointment to those presented for the vacant offices according to the new method of election, provided that a consideration of the morals and doctrine of those to be elected not cause any hindrance. From the king’s request it is easily seen that he himself without doubt acknowledges that in such cases the opinions of the bishops must be sought, and that it is obviously appropriate that We decree nothing until We have heard them. Therefore, We desire your advice and your several reasons for your advice, signed by everyone or at least by a great many, and We recognize how, supporting ourselves as if on a weighty monument, We are able to control and moderate Our deliberations, so that a beneficial and equitable judgment from Us emerges for you and the most Christian kingdom. While We await your reply, what you have explained in your letter will help Us in some degree to make a thorough examination of all the articles of the National Assembly.
If We first peruse the assertions of the Council of Sens begun in the year 1527 against the heresies of the Lutherans, certainly what forms the basis and foundation of the national decree that We are discussing cannot be considered free from the note of heresy. For the Council explained as follows:
But after these ignorant men, there arose Marsilius of Padua, whose pestilential book, called the Defensor pacis, was recently brought out with the Lutherans as its agents for the destruction of the Christian people. He, in railing hostilities against the Church and impiously applauding earthly princes, deprives prelates of all exterior jurisdiction, except that which the secular magistrate shall concede them. And all priests, be they simple priests or bishops, archbishops or even the Pope, he asserted are equal in authority by the institution of Christ, and whatever authority one had over the other must arise from the free concession of the lay prince, which he can at will revoke. But really the senseless raving of this deranged heretic is checked by the Sacred Scriptures, from which it is plainly proved that ecclesiastical power does not depend on the will of princes but on the divine law, by which it is granted to the Church to establish laws for the salvation of the faithful and to condemn rebels by legitimate censure. It is also openly proved by the same Scriptures that the power of the Church is not only far greater but also worthier than any lay power. Nevertheless, this Marsilius and the other aforementioned heretics, by raging impiously against the Church, jealously strive to some extent to diminish her authority.4
Furthermore, We remind you of the similar opinion of Benedict XIV of blessed memory, who in his letter of March 4, 1755,5 to the primate, archbishops, and bishops of the kingdom of Poland dealt with the little work printed in Polish but first published in French under the title Principles on the essence, the distinction and the limits of the two powers, spiritual and temporal, a posthumous work of Fr. Laborde of the Oratory, in which the author so subjected the ecclesiastical office to secular dominion, that he declared it belonged to this latter power to examine and judge the external, visible government of the Church. “The impudent writer,” says Benedict XIV, “contrives this wicked and pernicious system, already reprobated by the Apostolic See and expressly condemned as heretical, by fallacious reasonings, words composed to appear pious, and distorted testimonies from Scripture and the Fathers, by which he more easily imposes it on the simple and less cautious.” Therefore he proscribed the book and attached to it the notes captious,false, impious and heretical, and he condemned and forbade the reading, keeping6 and use of it to each and every Christian, even those worthy of specific and individual mention, on pain of automatic excommunication, to be incurred without any further declaration, from which no one could obtain the benefit of absolution but from the reigning Roman Pontiff, except at the point of death.7
And indeed what jurisdiction over the affairs of the Church could ever belong to laymen, such that ecclesiastics themselves could be held subject to their decrees? No Catholic can be ignorant of the fact that Jesus Christ, in instituting His Church, gave to the Apostles and to their successors a power accountable to no other power, which all the most holy Fathers acknowledged with one voice when Hosius and St. Athanasius warned: “Do not involve yourself in ecclesiastical matters, nor send us commands about them, but rather learn this from us: God gave dominion to you, and to us He entrusted ecclesiastical affairs. And just as he who takes your dominion from you resists the design of God, likewise take care lest, if you arrogate ecclesiastical affairs to yourself, you become guilty of a greater crime.”8 And with that in view, St. John Chrysostom cited the deed of Uzzah in order better to show how true this is: “He who supported the Ark that otherwise would have fallen died on the spot, because he usurped an office that did not belong to him. Is it therefore the case that the violated Sabbath and the single touch of the Ark that was about to fall9 provoked God to such indignation that those who had dared to do these things could not obtain even the least pardon, but this man, who corrupts venerable and ineffable dogmas, will have an excuse and obtain pardon? This cannot be; it cannot be, I say.”10 The holy councils decreed the same thing with the consent of your kings even until the grandfather of the present monarch, Louis XV, who declared August 20th, 1731, that he acknowledged “as his first duty to ensure that in the event of a dispute, no doubt would be raised concerning the sacred rights of that power which from God alone has received the right to determine questions of doctrine regarding the faith or the rule of morals; to establish canons or rules of discipline whereby the ministers of the Church and the faithful in the order of religion are governed; to institute her ministers or depose them according to the same rules; to compel the faithful to maintain obedience toward her by imposing on them, according to the canonical order, not only salutary penances but also true spiritual penalties, or judgments, or censures, which the first pastors can bring by their right.”
Yet against so certain a judgment in the Church, this National Assembly arrogates the power of the Church to itself, while it so frequently passes so many things that are hostile to dogma and ecclesiastical discipline, and while it constrains all bishops and clerics by an oath to carry out its decree. But this should come as no surprise to those who readily understand from the very nature of the Assembly that it is concerned with nothing other than the abolition of the Catholic religion and with it the obedience due to kings. With this in mind it is decreed that by right man in society should enjoy every kind of liberty; that is, that he should not be disturbed with regard to religion, and that he should be free to opine, say, write and even publish in print whatever he wants on the subject of religion. It declared that these monstrosities derive and emanate from the equality of men and the liberty of their nature. What more insane idea can be imagined, than that there exists such an equality and liberty among all, that no regard may be given to reason, which is the human race’s principal endowment from nature, and by which it is distinguished from the other animals? When God created man and placed him in a paradise of pleasure, did He not at the same time warn him with the penalty of death if he should eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Did He not then, once man had through disobedience rendered himself guilty, add many precepts through Moses? And although He left him in the hand of his own counsel, so that he might merit well or poorly, nevertheless he add commands, and precepts, so that if he wished to keep them, they would preserve him.11
Where, therefore, is that liberty of thinking and acting which the decrees of the Assembly attribute to man in society as an immutable right of his nature? It will be necessary from the opinion of their decrees to contradict the law of the Creator, through Whom we exist, and to Whose liberality we must refer whatever we are and have as a gift. Furthermore, who is now ignorant that men were created, not to live each one for himself, but to live and do good for other men? For in this weakness of nature they need one another’s aid for survival; and for that purpose God gave them both reason and the faculty of speech, so that they could both seek help and give it to those seeking it. Accordingly, led by nature itself, they came together in society and community. Now, since it pertains to man so to use his reason not only to acknowledge his supreme Creator but also to worship Him, adore Him and refer everything to Him, and since it has been necessary for him from the very beginning of his life to be subject to his elders, so that they might govern and instruct him and form his life according to the norm of reason, humanity and religion, certainly from the birth of every single man it is known that this vaunted liberty and equality among men is empty and meaningless. Be subject of necessity.12 Therefore, in order that men might be able to combine into civil society, a form of government had to be constituted, through which those rights of liberty were designated under the laws and the supreme power of the rulers. From this follows what St. Augustine teaches with these words: “To obey its kings is a general pact of a human society.”13 Therefore, this power is to be sought not so much from a social contract14 as from God Himself, the righteous and just Creator. This the Apostle confirmed in his epistle, celebrated above: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation.”15
And here it is appropriate to refer to the Second Council of Tours, held in the year 567, which anathematized not only him who dares to oppose the decrees of the Apostolic See, but also, “which is worse, him who, against what the vessel of election Paul the Apostle promulgated by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, presumes to write something else for any reason, since he himself says by the Holy Spirit, ‘Whoever shall preach aside from what I have preached, let him be anathema.’”16
But to refute the most absurd fiction of such liberty, this also can suffice, if we say that such an opinion was held by the Waldensians and Beguards, who were condemned by Clement V with the approval of the holy ecumenical Council of Vienne.17 It was then followed by the Wycliffites, and finally by Luther with these words: We are free in all things.However, what We have asserted about the obedience owed to legitimate powers We do not wish to be received as if We meant to oppose new civil laws to which the king himself has been able to grant his assent, inasmuch as they pertain to his temporal regime, as if We said them in order that everything might be returned to its original civil state, according to the interpretations of certain slanderers published to inflame hatred against religion. In truth We and you yourselves seek and urge only one thing: that the sacred rights of the Church and of the Apostolic See be preserved unharmed. To this end, let Us now consider this word liberty in another light, and let Us inspect the difference that stands between men who have always been outside the bosom of the Church, such as infidels and Jews, and those who have subjected themselves to the Church herself by receiving the sacrament of baptism. For the former group should not be constrained to profess Catholic obedience; the latter, however, are to be coerced. This difference is explained with the most solid reasons, as is his wont, by St. Thomas Aquinas,18 and many centuries earlier Tertullian explained it in his book Scorpiace against the Gnostics,19 and a few years ago Benedict XIV in his work De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione;20 and in order that the rationale for this position might be even clearer, one ought to read the two very celebrated and much-printed letters of St. Augustine, one to Vincentius and the other to Boniface,21 by which not only ancient but also recent heretics are expressly refuted. Therefore it is very clear that the equality and liberty vaunted by this Assembly results, as We have already proven, in the subversion of the Catholic religion, to which it has therefore refused to acknowledge as dominant in the kingdom, which title it has always possessed.
If We proceed now to expose the other errors of the National Assembly, We immediately find the abolition of the primacy of the Pope and of his jurisdiction, since it is decreed that “a new bishop shall not be able to resort to the Pope to obtain any confirmation, but he shall write to him as to the head of the universal Church in testimony of the unity of faith and communion which he must retain with him.” A new formula of oath is prescribed, in which the name of the Roman Pontiff is suppressed. Indeed since the elected bishop is bound by oath to the national decrees, in which it is prohibited to request confirmation of the election from the Pope, by that very fact the power of the Pope is absolutely excluded; and in this way the stream is cut off from the spring, the branch from the tree, the people from the first Priest.
Allow Us here to express to you the injuries brought against Our dignity and authority with the words with which St. Gregory the Great complained to the Empress Constantina about John, who had presumed to inaugurate novelties and through pride was calling himself the universal bishop, and asked her not to consent to John’s self-aggrandizement: “If in this case Your Piety in no way despises me, because even if the sins of Gregory (now Pius) are so great that he should suffer such things, there are no sins of the Apostle Peter that merit to suffer these things in Your times. Hence again and again I ask by almighty God, that just as Your predecessors as emperors sought the favor of St. Peter the Apostle, so You also take care to seek and maintain it for Yourself, and let not Our sins diminished among You the honor of him whom we unworthily serve, and who can both now assist You in everything and later remit Your sins.”22
What St. Gregory asked from the authority of Constantina for the honor of his pontifical dignity, We likewise ask from you, lest in your vast kingdom the honor and rights of the Primacy be abolished, and We wish that the merits of Peter be respected, whose heir We are, although unworthy, and who should be honored in the person of Our humility. If, hindered by the force of the another’s power, you are not able to carry this out, you should bolster yourselves with religion and resolve, firmly refraining from the commanded oath. The title usurped by John did less disservice to Gregory that the national decree does from Our rights. For how can it be said that communion with the visible head of the Church is maintained and preserved solely by announcing an election to him, while at the same time denying the authority of him primacy through the bond of an oath? Yet to him is owed, as to a head by its members, the solemn promise of canonical obedience, in order to maintain unity in the Church and to avoid schisms in its mystical body established by Christ the Lord, in which interest what pertains to the Churches of the French can be seen in Martène,23 where just such a formula of oath was in force, in which already in antiquity the bishops of Gaul in their ordinations added to their profession of faith an express clause of their obedience to the Roman Pontiff.
And here We are, of course, not unaware of, nor do We disguise, what the supporters of the national constitution cite against this from the letter of St. Hormisdas to Epiphanius, patriarch of Constantinople, or rather how much they misuse it. For from that letter it is well known that it was the custom that legates were sent with letters and professions of faith from elected bishops to the Roman Pontiff, from whom they asked to be admitted in unity and communion with the Apostolic See, and thus to obtain approval for their election. Since Epiphanius neglected to offer such a profession, Hormisdas wrote to him: “We were astonished to find the ancient custom neglected, since, now that harmony among the Churches has been restored, with God’s approval, the full duty of fraternal peace24 was required, especially because it was required not by personal arrogance but by observance of the rules. You, beloved brother, ought to have sent legates to the Apostolic See at the beginning of your pontificate, both so that you might know well what affection We have for you, and so that you might properly fulfill the form of ancient custom.”25
The enemies of the Primacy contend that the word ought there was nothing but urbanity and, if you will, diplomatic exuberance. But from the whole context of the letter, namely from the words harmony among the Churches… that you might properly fulfill the form of ancient custom, who now contends that the word ought, used by pontifical moderation, was not intended regarding the duty of the elected bishop to resort to the Pope to obtain approval? But immediately another papal letter yields an opposite interpretation, namely a letter of St. Leo IX to Peter, bishop of Antioch, who, when he announced to the Pope his election to the episcopate, received the reply26 that the care to announce and display the election he had obtained was very necessary…and that it was most appropriate for you and for “the Church over which you temporarily preside, that you did not delay to do this…but My Humility, thus exalted in the peak of the Apostolic Throne to approve what ought to be approved and condemn what ought to be condemned, gladly approves, praises and confirms Your Most Holy Fraternity’s episcopal promotion, and immediately asks Our common Lord that what you are now called with human mouth you might in truth be before His eyes.” This letter, which came not from the interpretation of a private doctor but from the judgment of a Pope well-known for his holiness and doctrine, leaves no doubt concerning the sense in which We explained the letter of St. Hormisdas, which deservedly should be counted among the more illustrious historical evidences for the confirmation that bishops must seek and obtain from the Roman Pontiff, which the authority of the Council of Trent supports,27 and which We defended in Our response on the nunciatures,28 and which many of you fought for with your outstanding and learned writings.
[After this letter was sent, We found among the letters of St. Pius V, who never wanted to confirm the election of Frederick de Veda as archbishop of Cologne, because had refused to send the profession of faith according to the formula approved by Pius IV (which prescribes that one acknowledge that the Roman Church is the mother and mistress of all the Churches, and that one profess and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff as successor of Blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ). And although Frederick, once elected, sent a declaration of his orthodoxy, and professed that he would shed his blood for the Roman Catholic faith, nevertheless S. Pius, after offering exhortations and warnings, refused to let the obstinacy of Frederic go unpunished, and hence he ordered that he either obey or give up his Church, whereupon Frederick, now put to the test, preferred to abdicate the see of Cologne than to profess the faith in the prescribed form, and through the Pope’s benignity it was permitted him to appear to cede his office voluntarily rather than be expelled against his will. This is all shown in the documents given by Laderchius.29
We add these, following the example of St. Leo, who added several things to his dogmatic epistle to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, and We think they should be communicated to you, in case what the Gallic bishops Ceretius, Salonius and Veranus desired, you also desire. For these are their words: “If You have compiled a worthwhile page by all your readings through some increase of Your zeal, command with eager piety that it be added to this book.”30]31
But, in order that Our same adversaries might preserve the decrees of this Assembly, they say that they pertain to discipline, which, since it had been changed often on account of the vicissitudes of the times, now in the same way could be changed. But among the decrees themselves, not only the disciplinary ones but also several others combine to overthrow pure and unchangeable dogma, as We have heretofore shown. However, if We are to address discipline, who among Catholics ever affirmed that ecclesiastical discipline can be changed by laymen? Even Pierre de Marca himself acknowledges that “concerning rites, ceremonies, sacraments, the censure, conditions and discipline of clerics, the canons of Council and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs are frequently issued as of material pertaining to themselves; and hardly any constitution of princes can be cited that was enacted purely on the authority of the secular power. We do see public laws follow in these areas but not precede.”32
Then, when in 1560 the Parisian faculty brought in for examination what Francis Grimaudet, the royal advocate, had referred to the Assembly, or the Estates convened at Anjou, among the many propositions that were censured is the following, no. 6: “The second point of religion is in the regulation33 and discipline of priests, which Christian kings and princes have the power of establishing, ordering and, when corrupted, reforming.” This proposition is false, schismatic, destructive of ecclesiastical power, and heretical, and the proofs cited for it are irrelevant.34 Furthermore, it is altogether certain that discipline cannot change at random and arbitrarily. Accordingly, the two foremost lights of the Catholic Church, St. Augustine35 and St. Thomas Aquinas,36 clearly teach that what belongs to discipline should not be changed except out of necessity or great benefit, for a change of custom, even one that helps by its usefulness, disturbs by its novelty. “And they should not be changed,” St. Thomas adds, “unless the common good is recompensed in another area as much as it is damaged in this area.” So far has it been from the Roman Pontiffs that they should ever have corrupted discipline, that rather they have always made it better and milder for the edification of the Church by the authority conferred on them by God, and We grieve what has been done against this by the members of this Assembly, as is easily discovered by comparing each of the articles of their decrees with the discipline of the Church.
But before We touch upon these articles, We consider it worthwhile to say first how often discipline coheres with dogma and conduces to the preservation of its purity, not to mention how little benefit the variations permitted by the Roman Pontiffs, however rarely, have brought, and how briefly they have lasted. Assuredly, the sacred Councils in most cases have separated by anathema the violators of discipline from the communion of the Church. Indeed at the Council in Trullo37 the penalty of excommunication was inflicted on those who consumed the blood of strangled animals: “Then if anyone shall undertake in whatever way to eat the blood of animals, if he is a cleric let him be deposed, but if he is a layman let him be excluded.” In many places the Council of Trent subjects to anathema the assailants of ecclesiastical discipline. For canon 9 of session 13, De Eucharistia, inflicts the penalty of anathema on him who “shall deny that each and every one of the faithful of either sex, when he shall have reached the age of discretion, is bound every year, particularly in Eastertide, to receive communion according to the precept of Holy Mother Church.” In canon 7 of session 22, De Sacrificio Missae, he is placed under anathema who says that “the ceremonies, vestments and external signs that the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Mass are incitements to impiety rather than services of piety.” In canon 9 of the same session, he likewise is subject to anathema who asserts that “the rite of the Roman Church, in which part of the Canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a low voice, should be condemned, or that Mass should be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only.” In canon 4 of session 24, De Sacramento Matrimonii, they are struck with anathema who say that “the Church was not able to establish diriment impediments to marriage, or that in establishing them she erred.” In canon 9 of the same session and title, he likewise falls into anathema who says that “clerics in sacred orders or regulars who have solemnly professed chastity can contract matrimony and that once contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law or the vow, and that the opposite is nothing but a condemnation of marriage, and that all can contract marriage who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even if they have made a vow of it.” In canon 11 of the same session and title, they are equally anathematized who say that “the prohibition of the solemnity of nuptials at certain times of the year is a tyrannical superstition drawn from the superstition of pagans, or who condemns the blessings and other ceremonies that the Church uses in them.” In canon 12 of the same session and title an anathema is imposed on those who say that “matrimonial cases do not belong to ecclesiastical judges.” Afterwards, on January 12, 1661,38 Alexander VII forbade under latae sententiae excommunication a version of the Roman Missal translated into French as “a novelty injurious to the perpetual dignity of the Church and easily productive of disobedience, temerity, boldness, sedition, schism and many other evils.”39 From the declaration of anathema against the opponents of many headings of discipline, We clearly understand that it was always considered by the Church to be connected to dogma, and that it should not be changed simply at any time or by anyone, but by the ecclesiastical power alone, when it is manifest that what was preserved until now had been done wrongly, or when the necessity of acquiring a greater good urges it.
Now it remains for Us to see how these variations, which it was hoped would be beneficial, are neither useful nor long-lasting. This will easily be clear to you if you recall the example of the use of the chalice, which Pius IV, when Emperor Ferdinand and Albert, duke of Bavaria, strongly asked for it, was finally induced to concede, doubtless so that some bishops having dioceses in Germany could, under certain conditions, permit it. But when more evil than good redounded in the Church from it, St. Pius V considered it necessary at the beginning of his pontificate to revoke this concession, which he immediately executed in his briefs, one dated June 8, 1566, to John, patriarch of Aquileia, and the other dated the following day to Charles, archduke of Austria. And when afterward Urban, bishop of Passau, requested the same indult, St. Pius, replying May 26, 1568, vehemently exhorted him “to retain the most ancient and holy rite of the Catholic Church rather than that which the heretics use…and in this judgment you should firmly and strongly remain, so that you do not allow yourself to be swayed from it by the fear of any loss or danger, even if temporal goods must be lost, even if you must undergo martyrdom. You should value the reward of such constancy more highly than any riches or temporal goods whatsoever. A truly Christian and Catholic man is not to avoid martyrdom, so much so that it is even to be sought out, and accepted from God as a unique benefit, and whoever shall be held worthy to shed his blood for Christ and His most holy sacraments should be considered blessed.”40 Hence St. Leo the Great, writing with decrees concerning certain articles of discipline to the bishops throughout Campania, Picenum, Tuscia and all the provinces, rightly closes his letter: “Therefore Our admonition declares that if any of the brethren shall attempt to oppose these decrees, and shall dare to admit what is prohibited, let him know that he will be removed from his office, and neither will he share in Our communion who did not wish to associate with Our discipline.”41
Now let Us proceed to examine the chapters of the decree of the National Assembly. Among the most serious stands out the suppression of ancient metropolises and several bishoprics, and the division of some and the erection of others. We do not here intend to bring into critical examination what historians somewhat doubtfully relate concerning the old division of the Gallican provinces administered by the civil law, from which We can infer that ecclesiastical metropolises matched them neither in time nor in place. As regards the matter at hand, it is sufficient if We note that the regions of ecclesiastical ministry in no way derive from the division of metropolises constituted in accord with the civil jurisdiction, which is clear from the argument offered by St. Innocent I: “For, as to your question of whether, when provinces are divided by an imperial judgment so that they become two metropolises, likewise two metropolitan bishops should be nominated, it does not seem that the Church of God should change according to the vicissitudes of earthly necessities, and to endure honors or divisions, which the Emperor for his own reasons considers worthwhile. Therefore, it is appropriate to nominate metropolitan bishops according to the ancient custom of provinces.”42 Pierre de Marca illustrates such a letter with famous documents from the practice of the Gallican Church. It will be enough to extract a few words: “The Gallican Church was of the same mind as the Council of Chalcedon and the decree of Innocent, and it considered it unlawful for new bishoprics to be instituted by the order of kings…Therefore it is not true that we recede from the common opinion of the universal Church with an unseemly adulation of princes, as happened to Marco Antonio de Dominis, who erroneously and against the canons themselves asserted the institution of bishoprics by kings. This opinion has been embraced by several more recent writers. The whole manner of arranging these affairs belongs to the Church, as I have said.”43
But, they say, We are asked to approve the decreed division of dioceses, and it should be maturely considered whether We ought to approve it. But the flawed origin from which such divisions and suppressions of Our day derive seems to stand in the way. Furthermore, it should be noted that We are not considering a change of only this or that diocese but the upending of almost all of them throughout the entire kingdom, and so many great churches that are to be removed from their places, since many of them that shone with archepiscopal honor are degraded to the episcopal rank, against which novelty Innocent III inveighed when he thought the patriarch of Antioch worthy of reprehending with these words: “because by some new change you have belittled the superior and in a certain way lessened the great, presuming to make a bishop of an archbishop, or rather to de-archbishop him.”44
Moreover, this novelty in the matter was consider of such great importance by Ivo of Chartres that to avoid it he felt it was necessary to resort to Paschal II and to address him with these words: “That You allow the state of the Churches, which has lasted almost forty years, to remain unchanged, lest on this occasion You incite in the Gallic kingdom the schism that exists in the Germanic kingdom against the Apostolic See.”45 Add to this that fact that, before We arrive at that point, We should ask the bishops, whose rights are being discussed, lest We be accused of violating the laws of justice toward them. How much St. Innocent I detests this can be seen from the following words of his:46 “For who can bear what they have left behind, who more than anyone should be zealous for tranquility, peace and concord? But now, by a perverted custom, innocent priests are thrown out of the sees of their Churches. The first to endure this injustice was John, Our brother and fellow priest and your bishop, since he had been listened to without consideration. No crime was brought forth or heard. And what is this wicked scheme? So that there can be no kind of judgment, others are substituted in the places of living priests, as if those who began with this kind of crime could either consider or execute anything justly. For neither have we ever found any such thing to have been done by our fathers, but rather prohibited, since to no one has permission been given to ordain another to the place of a living bishop, for a spurious ordination cannot take away the honor of the priesthood. Accordingly he can in no way be bishop who is unjustly substituted.” Finally We should ascertain beforehand what those peoples feel who are deprived of the benefit of appealing more quickly and conveniently to their Pastor.
Then there follows another novelty of changed, or rather overturned, discipline, namely that concerning the introduction of a new scheme of the elections of bishops, by which, naturally, the solemn agreement or concordat entered into by Pope Leo X and King Francis I and approved by the general council Lateran V is infringed and violated. In this concordat they promised mutual faith, which had now continuously endured for 250 years, and therefore is consider to be established by right in the law of the kingdom. The parties had agreed on a method of conferring bishoprics, prelatures, monasteries and benefices. But now that this concordat has been set aside, it has been decreed by this Assembly that henceforth bishops shall be elected by some assortment of districts and municipalities. That Assembly seems to have wanted to embrace the false opinions of Luther and Calvin, which the apostate Spalatensis followed in turn. These men asserted that it was a matter of divine law that bishops be elected by the people. It is very easy to detect that this opinion is erroneous if We remember ancient elections. For Moses—let Us begin at the beginning—made Aaron pontiff, and Eleazar after him, without the suffrage or the advice of the people; and Christ our Lord chose first twelve Apostles and then seventy-two disciples without the intervention of the people, and St. Paul made Timothy the bishop of Ephesus, Titus of the island of Crete, and Dionysius the Areopagite of Corinth, whom the Apostle ordained with his own hands.47 St. John gave Polycarp to Smyrna as bishop without any approval of the people,48 and almost innumerable disciples were sent by the judgment of the Apostles alone to absent peoples and infidels to govern by the pastoral office the Churches founded by the Apostles themselves in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.49 That this is the true method of election is proved also by the sacred councils, such as Laodicea I50 and Constantinople IV.51 St. Athanasius created Frumentius the bishop of the Indians in a council of priests, without the knowledge of the people.52 St. Basil in his synod chose Euphronius as bishop of Nicopolis without any request or consent from the citizens and people.53 St. Gregory II ordained St. Boniface bishop in Germany without the Germans’ knowing or thinking anything about it. The Emperor Valentinian himself, when the bishop deferred to him in election of the bishop of Milan, responded, “This business is greater than my powers, but you, who are full of divine grace, and who have received that divine power, will choose better.”54 What Valentinian felt, the French districts should feel and declare all the more, and Catholic magistrates embrace.
Against what has been cited so far arise Luther and Calvin and their followers, who reply with the example of St. Peter, who standing in the midst of his brethren said (there was a mob of almost 120 men), “It is necessary that from among these men, who were assembled with us all the time, another be chosen in the place of the ministry and apostolate from which Judas fell by his transgression.”55 But they arise falsely, for first of all Peter did not leave to the crowd the liberty of elected whomever it wanted, but rather prescribed and designated one of these men who had been gathered with him. Furthermore, Chrysostom removes all restrictions, saying, “What then? Was Peter himself not permitted to choose? Certainly he was permitted, but he abstains lest he seem to show favor.”56 This is strengthened further by other deeds of Peter just afterward, which can be read in the letter of St. Innocent I to Decentius, bishop of Gubbio.57 But after Catholic prelates began to be extruded from their sees by the force of the Arians, whom the Emperor Constantius favored, and their followers set up in those sees (which St. Athanasius denounces58), the necessity of the time required that the people be present in the elections of bishops, so that they might be roused to maintain in his see the bishop that they knew had been elected before them. But the clergy did not on that account lose the right of election, which everyone knows had always pertained to them by peculiar right; nor was it ever acknowledged that the rights of election had been delegated to the people alone. Nor therefore did the Roman Pontiffs every allow their authority to rest idle; for St. Gregory the Great appointed John the subdeacon, who came from Genoa, where there were many Milanese, to investigate their desires concerning Constantius, and if they continued to be favorable to him, John was then to cause him to be consecrated bishop of Milan by his own bishops, with the assent of the pontifical authority.59 Again, in a letter to the various bishops of Dalmatia he ordered by the authority of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, that absolutely no one was to presume to impose hands in the city of Salona without his consent and permission, nor to ordain anyone bishop in that city but whom he said, and if his order were violated, they would be deprived of participation in the Body and Blood of the Lord, and the one whom they ordained would not be considered a bishop.60 Likewise in a letter to Peter, the bishop of Otranto, when the bishops of Brindisi, Lupia and Gallipoli had died, he commands him to betake himself to those cities and to conduct a visitation, and to take care that priests worthy of such a dignity be appointed, who would come to the Pope to receive the gift of consecration.61 Finally in his letter to the Milanese he approves their election of Deusdedit to succeed the deceased bishop Constantius, and he decrees that Deusdedit be ordained solemnly on his authority, provided nothing stood in the way according to the sacred canons.62 St. Nicholas I did not cease to rebuke King Lothair because he strove to elevate to the episcopate in his kingdom men acceptable to him alone, so much so that by his apostolic authority he enjoined him, on pain of divine judgment, that he was to allow no one to be elected in the cities of Trier and Cologne until the Apostolic See had been informed of it.63 Moreover, Innocent III rightly64 reproved the bishop of Penne65 because he had installed himself without warrant on the episcopal throne, before he was called to it or confirmed in it by the Roman Pontiff.66 Similarly he also deposed the bishop Conrad first from the see of Hidesheim, then from that of Würzburg, because he had arrogantly assumed each without consulting the Roman Pontiff.67 St. Bernard humbly requested of Honorius II that he deign to confirm Alberic of Châlons,68 elected by his suffrage, which plainly shows that the holy abbot acknowledged that episcopal elections are of no value without the apostolic approval.
Finally, since discords, tumults and other abuses were continually excited, it was necessary to remove the people from elections and to pass over their desire regarding the person to be elected.
This exclusion of the people, if it was prudently introduced then, when it concerned only the admission of Catholics to the elections, what must be said about the decree of the National Assembly, by whose power, the clergy being neglected, such elections are to be given to the French districts, in which, since they contain Jews, heretics and all manner of heterodox persons, of whom not a small party would take part in episcopal elections, then would result what St. Gregory the Great least desired and could not bear, as he testified in writing to the Milanese: “We by no means offer consent to a man who is elected not by Catholics but rather by Lombards…because the vicar of St. Ambrose is evidently shown to be unworthy if he is ordained having been elected by such people.”69
For thus not only would all disturbances and offenses, long since abolished, be renewed, but also men would be easily chosen as bishops who consider those in the corruption of errors their comrades and teachers, or who at least secretly in their minds cultivate opinions similar to those of the electors, as St. Jerome notes: “The judgment of the people errs sometimes, and in assenting to priests each one favors his own morals, and seeks not so much a good leader as one like himself.”70 But what should be expected from such bishops, who enter otherwise than by the gate,71 or rather what evil against religion is not to be feared, from those who, trapped by the snare of deception, will in no way be able to correct deception in the people?72 Certainly they, no matter what sort of people they are, would have no power of binding and loosing, since they lack a legitimate mission, and they would immediately be declared outside the communion of the Church by this Holy See, which has always done so in these kinds of cases, and she now also declares it by a public edict in all elections of the Ultrajectine bishops.73
But in the decree there is found something which seems to be still worse, namely that the bishops elected by their districts are commanded to go to the metropolitan or to a more senior bishop to obtain confirmation from him, and if he shall decline to give it, it is prescribed that he put the cause for his refusal in writing, and that the excluded men may make an appeal ex abusu to the civil magistrates, who shall judge that judgment of the metropolitans or excluding bishops, with whom the power of judging concerning morals and doctrine resides, and who, as St. Jerome writes,74 were established to restrain the people from error. But so that it may appear more clearly how illegitimate and insufficient this appeal to laymen is, the celebrated example of the emperor Constantine should be recalled. For when many bishops had come to Nicaea to celebrate a council, they thought it was opportune that the emperor should participate also, before whom the Arians might be indicted. But the emperor, having received the petitions that had been offered to him, said, “Since I am but a man, it is not lawful for me to arrogate the investigation of such things to myself, when both those who accuse and those who are accused are priests.”75 Many other examples of this kind could be adduced, but We do not wish to present too much evidence in an obvious matter. And if the contrary example of his son Constantius, certainly an enemy of the Catholic Church, is cited, who did arrogate authority to himself, which his own father confessed he did not possess, it is easy to recognize from the writings of Sts. Athanasius76 and Jerome77 how much they detested those actions.
At length what else did the Assembly wish to do with these decrees than overturn and reduce to nothing the episcopacy itself, as if out of hatred of Him Whose ministers the bishops are? By these decrees there is proclaimed a permanent council of priests, who are to be called vicars, and these are to be sixteen in cities containing 10,000 residents but twelve where the number of inhabitants is smaller. Similarly the bishops are compelled to accept others, namely those who had been priests of suppressed parishes, and these are called vicars pleni juris, the power of which right need not be subject and submissive to the bishops to whom they are attached. As regards the first, even if the power of choosing them is left to the bishops, nevertheless the bishops are prevented from making any act of jurisdiction without the vicars’ assent (except provisionally) and from removing any one of their number from their council, except by the majority vote of the council. What else is this than to want every diocese to be ruled by priests, who overthrow the jurisdiction of bishops? In this way, does it not contradict the doctrine read in the Acts of the Apostles: “The Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with His own blood”?78 Is not the order of every sacred hierarchy utterly inverted and disturbed? Doubtless presbyters are being equated to bishops, which first the priest Aerius asserted,79 then Wycliffe and Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, whom Calvin finally followed, according to the collection of citations in Benedict XIV’s work on diocesan synods.80
Really presbyters are placed ahead of the bishops, since the latter cannot remove any of the former from the council, or decree anything without a majority vote of the deliberating vicars, as We have said. Yet canons, who compose a legitimately founded chapter, and who constitute a senate of the churches, when they are admitted to discussions cannot themselves vote but can only offer their advice, as Benedict XIV shows concerning the two provincial councils of Bordeaux.81
Furthermore, as regards the vicars of the second kind, who are called pleni juris, it is truly amazing and utterly unheard of that bishops should be bound to offer them duties which they could have just cause for refusing, and that those who have only subsidiary roles and who are acting in the stead of capable men should not even be subject to those whose charge they are carrying out.
But We must progress still further. Since this Assembly has come to establishing laws for governing seminaries, as it made the power of electing vicars from the whole clergy, so also it does not leave to the bishops even the liberty of electing superiors or rectors in seminaries, for it wants this to be done by the bishop together with the vicars by majority vote, and it prohibits the removal of the superiors and rectors once they have taken office except by the consent of the majority of the vicars, as We have said. Who here does not see how greatly the bishops are distrusted, to whom it belongs to have care of the institution and discipline of those who are to be commissioned in the Church and appointed to her service? Yet nothing is more certain and indubitable than that the head and chief administrator of seminaries is the bishop, and although the Council of Trent orders that two canons be appointed to oversee the ecclesiastical discipline of the students,82 nevertheless it leaves their selection to the bishops as the Holy Ghost shall suggest, and the bishops are constrained neither to adhere to their judgments nor to yield to their advice. But now how much faith will the bishops be able to put into the care of those who will have chosen by other people, perhaps bound by a sworn oath to uphold the poisoned decrees of the Assembly?
Finally, to reduce bishops to a state of extreme abjection and to bring them into the contempt of all, it is decreed that every three months, they shall receive a stipend, like those doing mercenary work, such that they are no longer able to relieve the hardships of the needy, who make up the majority of the people, much less maintain their degree of episcopal dignity. This new institution of episcopal congruae83 differs completely from that which had been given to bishops and parish priests in stable estates, which they themselves administered, and whose fruits they received as from the Lord. On that account we find that an estate of land was appointed for the churches, as is read in the capitularies both of Charlemagne84 and of King Lothair.85 The latter says, “We desire that according to the order of Lord, and of our father, one domain and twelve measures of arable land be given there.”86 And since the grants assigned to some domains of the bishoprics did not suffice, they were increased by uniting them to the abbatial estates, as We recall has frequently happened in France even during the time of Our pontificate. But now the means by which the bishops maintain their livelihoods will be in the hands of laymen, who control the treasury, and who are able to defraud them of their income if they oppose the perverse decrees that We have mentioned. Add to this that, once a certain part of the money is assigned to each bishop, none of them will any more be able to adopt a suffragan or a coadjutor, since the fruits of the church will not be able to supply for him what is appropriate to maintain his livelihood and dignity. Assuredly We know that this need arises not rarely in the dioceses, either because of the advanced age of the bishop, or because of his ill health, as a certain Archbishop of Lyon for this cause asked for and received a suffragan from the Pope, and to him a congrua was assigned from the produce of the archepiscopal table.87
Since We have already seen, beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, and greatly wondered that it has there been ordered that the chief articles of ecclesiastical discipline be changed, episcopal sees suppressed, divided, erected, not to mention bishops sacrilegiously elected, and whatever harms result from these things, should We not for the same reasons feel likewise concerning the suppressions of parishes, as you yourselves in your exposition already noted? We cannot but add here that, aside from the duty that was committed to the provincial assemblies of distributing, as it shall seem fit to them, the borders of their parishes, their innumerable suppressions cause in Us the greatest amazement, since the National Assembly had already decreed that in cities or towns in which only six thousand heads are counted, only one parish should be constituted. In what way will one parish priest ever be enough to care for so many people? As regards this matter, it seems opportune to relate here that Cardinal Conrad, delegated by Gregory IX to preside at the Synod of Cologne, interrogated with these words a certain parish priest who was present and who vehemently argued that the friars of the Order of Preachers should not be introduced there: “What is the number of men subject to you in your parish?” When he replied that it was nine thousand, the Cardinal, moved by amazement and anger, said, “Who are you, you wretched man, that you are sufficient give the due care of government to so many thousands? Do you not know, most lost of men, that in that tremendous judgment before the tribunal of Christ, you will have to answer for all of them? And you complain, if you have such vicars [Friars Preacher], who freely relieve your burden, under whose weight you ignorantly shake: therefore, because by this complaint you have judged yourself entirely unworthy of the care of souls, I deprive you of every pastoral benefice.”88 And although there the number was nine thousand but here six thousand souls are committed by the decree of the Assembly to the care of one parish priest, nevertheless who would not say that such a number far exceeds the powers of one parish priest, and that it must necessarily result that many of the parishioners will be deprived of spiritual assistance, for which they will be unable to resort to the regulars, who have already been suppressed?
Now let Us pass to the invasion of ecclesiastical goods, another error of Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun condemned in the constitution of John XXII89 and long before in the decretal of Pope St. Boniface I,90 reported by many: “No one may be ignorant that everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether it be a man or an animal or a field, or anything that shall once be consecrated, shall be holy of holies to the Lord, and belongs to the right of priests. Therefore, everyone will be inexcusable who takes what belongs to God or the Church and ravages it, invades it or takes it away, and he shall be judged sacrilegious and bound to repentance and satisfaction of the Church. And if he will not reform himself, he shall be excommunicated.” Or the Sixth Council of Toledo,91 and Loyse’s note D,92 which explains the text of the Council: “As for what a heinous crime it is for the things given by the faithful with sincere faith to the churches to be taken away or alienated, at the present time there are extant many writings of the most learned men, which for brevity’s sake I prudently omit. I will adduce one only, which I find written in the Eastern constitutions. Nicephorus Phocas completely abolished the grants left to the monasteries and temples and passed a law that the Church not be enriched with immovable goods, giving the pretext that the bishops were poorly spending what they gave to the poor, since in the meantime the soldiers were wanting. The emperor Basil the Younger Porphyrogenitus repealed his temerity and his impious law with another law, which I consider worthy of quotation here. Our rule, which has come from God, since it learned both from the monks, whose piety and virtue are attested, and from many others that the law passed by the lord Nicephorus, who usurped Our rule, concerning the churches of God and the holy buildings, or rather against the churches of God and their holy buildings, has been the cause and root of the present evils and of all this subversion and confusion (as what has been done to injure and contemn not only the churches and the holy buildings but even God Himself), and especially since it discovered that this was in fact the case, for since this law has been observed, nothing in any way good has occurred even to the present day of Our life, but rather no kind of evil whatever has been lacking, ordered by this present golden bull, that the aforementioned law shall cease from the present day, and henceforth shall remain void and of no force, and the laws that have been passed concerning the churches of God and the holy buildings and houses of religion shall take its place and hold force.”
This was the ancient and constant desire both of the French nobility and of the people. For in the year 803 they offered Charlemagne the following entreaty:93 “On bended knees we beseech Your Majesty, that henceforth, as until now, the bishops not be harassed with armies, but when You and we go forth in arms, they reside in their own parishes…yet we desire that You and everyone know that we do not seek this because we wish to deprive them of their belongings or of any of their monies, unless it shall please them freely to give us something, or of their churches, but rather we desire to increase for them, if the Lord shall grant it, that they and You and we might be more secure, and, with God Himself as our help, that we might merit to please Him. For we know that the belongings of the Church are consecrated to God; we know that they are all offerings of the faithful and the prices of sins; therefore if anyone takes them away from the churches, to which they have been conferred by the faithful and consecrated to God, without doubt he commits sacrilege. He is blind who does not see this. Therefore, whichever of us gives his belongings to the Church offers and dedicates them to the Lord God and to His saints and to no one else, saying the following and doing thus: for he writes an account of these belongings that he wishes to give to God, and in front of the altar or above it he holds this account in his hand, saying to the priests and guardians of the place, ‘I offer and dedicate to God all the things contained in this list for the remission of my sins and those of my parents and children….’ If someone later takes them from there, what is that but sacrilege? Therefore, if it is theft to take something from a friend, then to defraud or take something from the Church is without doubt sacrilege….Therefore, so that these things may be kept by You and by us, or by Your successors and ours in future times, without any dissimulation, command that they be inserted in the ecclesiastical laws and included in among Your capitula.”
To this the emperor replied:94 “We immediately grant these things just as you requested…For we know that many kingdoms and their kings have fallen because they despoiled the churches and ravaged, alienated or snatched away their belongings, and took them from their bishops and priests and, what is more important, churches…And in order that these may be kept more devoutly throughout future times, We command that no one, either in Our times or in the future, by Us or by Our successors, ever at any time presume to seek or intrude upon or ravage or alienate by any kind of scheme the belongings of the churches without the consent and will of the bishops in whose parishes they are known to be. If any shall do this, either in Our times or in those of Our successors, let him be subject to the penalty for sacrilege, and let him be punished legally as a committer of sacrilege and a murderer or sacrilegious thief by Us and by Our successors and Our judges, and anathematized by our bishops.”
But let whoever takes part in this usurpation read about the vengeance that the Lord took upon Heliodorus and his associates, who tried to steal treasures from the Temple, against whom the Spirit of almighty God gave great evidence of His manifestation, such that those who dared to obey Heliodorus, were turned back and cast by the power of God into destruction and terror. For a horse appeared to them with a fearsome rider and decorated with the best coverings. The horse struck Heliodorus forcefully with its forelegs, and the rider seemed to have armor of gold. Two other youths also appeared, adorned with strength, outstanding in glory, and splendid in dress, who stood around him and from both sides whipped him unremittingly, beating him with many blows. But suddenly Heliodorus fell to the ground, and they took him away, having first covered him with a great darkness, and put him in the saddle. Thus the story is read in the second book of Maccabees,95 and although it concerns monies that did not pertain to the sacrifices and did not properly belong to the Temple, but were reserved in it for the support of orphans, widows and others, nevertheless, because of the violated majesty and holiness of the Temple and the usurpation of others’ property, the Lord inflicted a grave penalty on Heliodorus and his accomplices. Terrified by this example, the emperor Theodosius ceased confiscating a deposit of some widow reserved in the church in Ticinum, as St. Ambrose narrates.96
And here who will ever believe that when the books of the churches and of Catholic clerics are seized and usurped, at the same time estates are preserved for Protestants, who rebelliously attacked Our religion, with agreements cited as the reason? Those agreements with Protestants held good with the National Assembly, but canonical sanctions and the pacts of this Holy See with King Francis I did not hold good? And it pleased them to be obliging in an affair in which the priesthood of God was despoiled. Who does not easily understand that in this occupation of ecclesiastical goods, they had in mind, among other things, the aim that the holy temples be profaned and the ministers of the Church brought into the contempt of everyone, so that others henceforth would be deterred from choosing the Lord’s portion?97 For these goods had hardly begun to be usurped when at once the abolition of divine worship followed, the temples were closed, sacred furnishings removed, and the singing of the Divine Office in churches ordered to cease. Until now France could98 glory that colleges or chapters of secular clerics, already introduced in the sixth century, flourished in her land, as can be seen in Gregory of Tours,99 and is also clear from the other documents cited by Mabillon in his Vetera analecta, and from the Third Council of Orange, held in 538;100 but now France herself is compelled to bewail their abolition, so unjustly and unworthily decreed by the National Assembly. It was the foremost occupation of the canons to render the divine praises together by singing every day in the churches, as the Lives of the Bishops of Metz by Paulus Diaconus, says: “Bishop Chrodegang commanded the clergy, abundantly imbued with the divine law and the Roman style of chant, to preserve the custom and order of the Roman Church.”101 When the emperor Charlemagne sent the work On Sacred Images to Hadrian I to submit it to his examination, the Pope took the opportunity to exhort him that the many churches of France that had declined to accept the tradition of the Apostolic See in chanting the Psalms embrace it with diligence, so that the Church they followed in the gift of faith they should adhere to also in the order of singing psalms. The words of Charlemagne with a long exposition can be read in the work of Dominicus Georgius on the liturgy of the Roman Pontiff.102 Furthermore, the same emperor desired that a schola cantorum be instituted in the monastery of St. Riquier (Centula) after the fashion of the one St. Gregory the Great instituted in Rome, and that in it one hundred boys be provided for, divided into three choirs to assist the monks in singing psalms and chanting.103 And this agrees with what the monk Koloman Sanftl, the librarian in the monastery of St. Emmeram in Ratisbon,104 recently confirmed in his dissertation, dedicated to Us, on the golden and very ancient manuscript codex of the holy Gospels of the same monastery.105
“At first the French and Spanish bishops took great care that a uniform rite in the divine offices was maintained in every province: various decrees on this subject are extant both among the French and among the Spanish. In the first place there is the renowned constitution of the Fourth Council of Toledo (held in 531), whose Fathers, after the exposition of the Catholic faith, considered nothing more important than to establish a uniform manner of chanting the psalms (canon 2).” Thus Mabillon indicates this kind of ancient rite in his disquisition on Gallican chant.106
Therefore, what already in ancient centuries the French Church was so anxious to provide for and fortify, that her clerics in the rank of canon spend their time in the appropriate occupation of their sacred office, and that the faithful, invited by the clerics’ performance of their duty, flock all the more to the churches to contemplate the divine mysteries and to obtain the reconciliation of God’s grace, now the National Assembly with one decree has suddenly removed, overthrown and abolished, with the utmost offense to everyone, in which action it has followed (as in in all the articles of the decree) the dictates of heretics, and in this matter especially the ravings of the Wycliffites, the Magdeburg Centuriators and Calvin, who raged against the antiquity of ecclesiastical chant, and against whom Fr. Martin Gerbert, the abbot of the monastery and the congregation of St. Blaise in the Black Forest, has written copiously.107 When in 1782 We went to Vienna in the cause of religion, he came to Us several times and demonstrated before Us how worthily he had obtained such renown for his name.
But the authors of the decree should consider what was historically and dogmatically declared in the Synod of Arras in 1025 concerning such enemies of psalmody, so that they might be filled with greater shame: “But who doubts that you are agitated by an unclean spirit when you reject what has been brought forth and instituted by the Holy Spirit, namely the practice of chanting psalms in the holy Church, and you accuse it of error almost as a superstition? The clerical order took up this form of rhythmic singing not from absurd and foolish spectacles but from the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments…Hence it is well known that they must be expelled from the bosom of the Church who publicly assert that this office of chanting the psalms in no way pertains to divine worship…Therefore it is clear that such persons do not dissent from their head, that is to say, the Devil, who is the head of all evils, and who understands Sacred Scripture but exerts himself to pervert it by a wicked interpretation.”108 Now if the ornament of the house of God and His worship falls in this kingdom, it must necessarily follow that the number of clerics will decline, and what St. Augustine relates happened to the Jewish nation will result: “Once it began to lack prophets, without doubt it became worse, just at that time when it was hoping it would be better.”109
Now having begun on this route, let Us proceed to the regulars, whose goods the National Assembly arrogated to itself, yet covering its action with a less odious pretext, namely in order to use their fruits, which indeed differs somewhat from true propriety of ownership. But, by the decree published February 13 and confirmed after six days by the royal sanction, all the institutes of regulars were suppressed, and it was prohibited that any others should henceforth be admitted. But how much good these institutes bring to the Church, the Council of Trent deduces from experience itself: “For the holy Synod is not ignorant of how much splendor and benefit arises in the Church of God from monasteries piously established and rightly administered.”110
And certainly all the Father of the Church showered the orders of regulars with the highest praises, among whom St. John Chrysostom, who fought bitterly against their opponents with three whole books.111 And after St. Gregory the Great had warned Marinianus, archbishop of Ravenna, not to vex the monasteries with hardships but to defend them and with all effort assemble the religious there,112 he convoked a council of bishops and priests and in it issued a decree “that no bishop or secular cleric should intrude upon the revenues, belongings or charters of monasteries, or diminish the stores or farms that belong to them in any way or on any occasion, either by a wicked trick or by doing them violence.”
Later, in the thirteenth century, arose William of Saint-Amour, who in his book De periculis novorum temporum devoted himself totally to deterring men from turning to and entering religion, but this book was called in for examination by Pope Alexander IV and declared evil, wicked, execrable and abominable.113
Two doctors of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas114 and St. Bonaventure,115 wrote against and refuted the aforementioned William. And since Luther revived the same condemned opinion, he also received condemnation from Pope Leo X.116 Likewise in one of the councils of Rouen in 1581, the bishops were warned to “safeguard their subsidiary regulars and to hold them dear, and to nourish them as assistants, and to consider all injuries and insults done to them as if they had been done to themselves, and to ward them off.”117 The pious wishes of St. Louis IX, the king of France, will always be memorable, whose great concern was that the two sons he had during his expedition to the East, when they reached the age of discretion, be brought up in the enclosure of monasteries, one with the Dominicans, the other with the Minorites, so that they might be instructed in the sacred traditions and literature and be brought to the love of religions, desiring with his whole heart that, informed by wholesome examples and inspired by God, they might in their own times and places enter religion themselves.118 But more recently, the authors of the work called Nouveau traité de diplomatique burst out into these words: “What attention can the declamations merit that were published by an historian of the public ecclesiastical law of France, against the privileges conceded to the monasteries? Privileges, he says, and exemptions that could not be conceded without overturning the hierarchy and violating the rights of the episcopacy, and which were really abuses, and introduced the greatest abuses? What temerity to attack a discipline so ancient and supported by so much authority in Church and in the kingdom!”
Here let Us not conceal, nor should it seem surprising to anyone, that sometimes in religious orders the spirit of their institutes can become rather lax and languid, and the original rigor prescribed by their discipline is not retained. But are the orders therefore to be abolished? On this matter let us hear what John of Palomar objected to Peter Rayne, an opponent of the regulars, at the Council of Basel. John did not deny that certain things worthy of reform had prevailed among the regulars, yet he added that “although there are at this time many things in the religious that need reform, just as in other states, nevertheless they greatly illuminate the Church with their preaching and teaching, and no prudent man, being in a dark place, extinguishes his lamp because it does not shine well, but if it has slag or dross he tries to improve it as he best can. For it is better if it shines somewhat dimly than if it were entirely extinguished.”119 This opinion evidently is derived from another, which St. Augustine uttered so much earlier: “Is medicine therefore to be neglected because in some people the disease is incurable?”120
For this reason the abolition of the regulars decreed by the National Assembly that approves the fictions of heretics injures the state of public profession of the evangelical counsels; injures a manner of living commended in the Church as consistent with apostolic doctrine; injures those renowned founders whom We venerate on the altars, who established these societies in no wise but by God’s inspiration. But the National Assembly goes further: it ordered in its decree of February 13, 1790, that it in no way recognizes the solemn vows of religious, and consequently it declares that the regular orders and congregations in which they are taken are suppressed in France and remain suppressed, nor can they ever be hereafter restored. What is this other than to lay hands on major and perpetual vows, and to abolish them, which pertain only to papal authority? For major vows, says St. Thomas,121 i.e. vows of continence and so forth, are reserved to the Supreme Pontiff. And since it has to do with a promise to God made for our good, thus in Psalm 75, verse 12, We read, “Vow ye, and pay to the Lord your God,” and in Ecclesiastes, “If thou hast vowed any thing to God, defer not to pay it: for an unfaithful and foolish promise displeaseth him: but whatsoever thou hast vowed, pay it.”122
Furthermore, since even the Supreme Pontiff himself, persuaded for a time by particular reasons, thinks that he should grant a dispensation of solemn vows, he effects this not by an arbitrary act of his power but by means of a declaration. Nor should it here appear wonderful that Luther should have taught that one ought not repay one’s vows to the Lord God, since he was an apostate and a deserter of his religion. But so that the most thoughtful members of the National Assembly, as they seem to themselves, should escape reprehension and reproach, which they recognized would come upon them from the sight of so many dispersed religious, they took away from the same religious the habit of their profession, lest any appearance remain of their past state, from which they were disturbed, and so that even the very memory of the orders might be erased. Therefore the orders themselves were suppressed, both so that their goods might be invaded and so that nobody might any longer exist who could call people back from error and corruption of morals. This very wicked and pestilential trick is graphically described and condemned by the Council of Sens, which We praised at the beginning: “[The Protestants] grant the liberty of wantonness to monks and others bound by vows; they concede them the faculty of leaving the veil, throwing off the cowl and returning to the world; they permit apostasy, and they strive to weaken the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, the decretal letters also, and the conciliar canons.”123
To what We have just explained regarding religious vows, it is necessary to add the monstrous judgment given against the holy virgins, ejecting them from their cloisters, as did Luther, who “did not fear to pollute those holy vessels of God, the virgins consecrated to Christ, and to remove those who professed a monastic life from their monasteries and to return to them to the world, or rather to the Devil, whom they had once abjured.”124 Since nuns (the more glorious part of the Catholic flock) frequently avert grave dangers from cities through their prayers, as St. Gregory acknowledged happened at Rome in his time: “if they did not exist, none of us could have survived for so many years in this place, among the swords of the Lombards.”125 And Benedict XIV, speaking of his nuns in Bologna, says, “The city of Bologna, tossed about by so many calamities for years now, could not have stood had not the fervent prayers of our nuns assuaged the enkindled wrath of God.”126 In the meanwhile, the nuns, who in France are now harassed by the greatest disturbances, aroused deep sympathy in Us, when a large group from all the provinces explained their sorrow to Us in a letter, because they were prevented from retaining their rules and keeping their solemn vows, and together they declared they their minds were certain, fixed and determined that they would undergo any severities whatsoever rather than withdraw from their vocation. Accordingly, We could not fail to show you, Our beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, their abundant display of constancy and fortitude and vehemently to ask you to add the spurs of your encouragement and offer as much assistance as you can.
We could proceed to still other things worth noting regarding the decree of the Assembly, since from beginning to end it contains almost nothing that is not to be guarded against and reprehended, and all its sentences are so connected and coherent that hardly any part is free from the suspicion of error. But since We have already declared the greater monstrosities of the errors that are in it, and meanwhile, what We did not expect, in public pamphlets We have read that the bishop of Autun bound himself by his own oath to the words of the decree, We almost died of so great a grief, and We had to pause what We are writing to you. Our affliction increased astonishingly, such that night and day the apple of Our eye did not cease,127 when We saw that bishop detached from the others and separated from his colleagues, one out of all of them, to such an extent that he called God as a witness to his errors. And although he tried to save himself and prove himself innocent in one article touching the restriction of dioceses and the transferals of people to other dioceses, since he wanted to deceive and delude the unsuspecting, he straightaway used an inept comparison, namely that of a whole people, which because of public calamities or other urgent necessity is forced by the civil power to move from one diocese to another. These two examples differ in the extreme: when a people leaves its diocese and transfers to another, the bishop of the diocese to which they go exercises proper and ordinary jurisdiction over the new inhabitants within the boundaries of his diocese—jurisdiction, We say, not sought from the civil power but owed to him by his right. Indeed it is his right that all those who dwell in the diocese belong by reason of domicile and habitation to the bishop in whose diocese they are. If it should happen that the bishop of the diocese from which the people withdraws remains without a laity, it does not ever therefore become the case that a pastor without a flock ceases to be a bishop or that his church loses the title of cathedral, but both the bishop and his church retain their episcopal and cathedral rights, as is the case concerning churches occupied by Turks or other infidels, which are often conferred on titular bishops. On the contrary, where the boundaries of dioceses are changed in such a way that either whole dioceses or parts of them are transferred from the bishop to whom they belong to another, then clearly, since this was not done by legitimate ecclesiastical authority, the bishop from whom either a whole diocese is taken or part broken off cannot desert the flock that had been entrusted to him, and the other bishop, illegitimately increased with a new diocese, lay hands on the other diocese and take up the rule of sheep that are not his. For the canonical mission and jurisdiction that each bishop has is surrounded by definite limits, and the civil authority can never either make it wider or constrict it more narrowly.
Therefore, nothing could have been more foolishly devised than that contrived comparison concerning the transfer of a people to another diocese and the new alteration of dioceses and their borders. For in the first case, the bishop exercises that jurisdiction which he claims by right in his diocese; contrariwise, in the other case, he extends that jurisdiction which by no means pertains to him in another diocese. We have thus found nothing in the oath proffered by the bishop of Autun by which he can in any way defend himself with a Catholic argument from the charge of impiety. Among the conditions which are required for a licit oath, the foremost is that it be true and just. Now where can the truth, where can the justice be, when from the principles already cited above, nothing but what is false and unjust is deduced from them? Nor can the bishop now in any way excuse himself if he says that he acted precipitously and inconsiderately. Did he not proceed to the oath advisedly and deliberately, since he took pains to bolster it with false rationales, and since he already understood the opinions of the other bishops who were eruditely and piously fighting against the decree of the Assembly, and since he could not but have before his eyes then another plainly opposite oath that he had taken in his still recent consecration? Thus in every way it must be said that he fell into voluntary and sacrilegious perjury, which is assuredly opposed to the dogmas of the Church and to her most certain laws.
And here We consider it opportune to recall what occurred in England in the time of King Henry II. He made a quite similar decree, although written in fewer words, by which, abolishing the liberty of the English Church, he arrogated the rights of the primacy in it to himself. When he proposed it he commanded the bishops to swear by the words of the decree, that is, as he called them, by “the ancestral customs of the kingdom.” They, when they obeyed, in taking the oath added the clause “their order being preserved.” But this clause did not please the king, who said, “There is poison hidden in that, and it is captious.” And he commanded that “they promise to observe the customs of the kingdom absolutely and without any addition.” Even though they were struck by this response and overwhelmed with fear, still they were incited to resistance by the archbishop of Canterbury, later a martyr, St. Thomas. And the pontiff comforted them and exhorted them to stand firm in their pastoral office. “But as the most grave disturbances and evils were increasing daily, some bishops besought the archbishop to have pity on them and the clergy and relax his obstinacy, lest he suffer imprisonment and the clergy expulsion. The man of unconquered firmness, and founded on the rock of Christ, and until then neither softened by blandishments nor shaken by terrors, finally, moved by pity for the clergy rather than for himself, separated himself from the bosom of truth and from the heart of his Mother.” After him the other bishops swore the oath, but the archbishop, when he realized his error, was weighed down by the greatest grief and groaned, sighing as he said, “I repent, and gravely horrified by my deviation I judge myself unworthy of anymore approaching Him in the priesthood Whose Church I bargained in such a base transaction: thus I will be silent, sitting in grief until the Dawn from on high shall visit me, and I merit to be absolved by God Himself and by the lord Pope. For now I see that, driven by my sins, the English Church must become a servant, which my predecessor throughout so many and such great dangers that the world knows ruled so prudently, for which they fought so strongly among her enemies, and triumphed so powerfully—that she who before me was a mistress by my wretchedness appears as a servant. I wish I were annihilated so that no eye could see me!”
Thomas quickly sent letters to the Pope and showed him his wound; seeking medicine he asked for absolution, and the Pope recognized that Thomas had taken the oath not of his own will but through a shortsighted piety, and moved by a just pity absolved him by his apostolic authority. Thomas received the pontifical letter as if sent from heaven, and he did not cease to warn to king, now mildly, now firmly, mentioning those things that ought to have slowed the prince who was rushing to harm the Church. Meanwhile the king, having learned that Thomas had broken from his initial promise, wrote to the Pope asking to be granted two things: first, that the customs of the kingdom be approved by Rome, and secondly that the prerogative of apostolic delegation be transferred from the Church of Canterbury to that of York. The Pope rejected the first petition, as can be seen in the letter he sent to Thomas. The second he allowed, provided the integrity of the ecclesiastical order were maintained, and through another apostolic letter written to the bishop of York he commanded that the latter abstain from acts of jurisdiction in the province of Canterbury and that he not have the cross carried before him into it. Afterward Thomas fled to France and thence to Rome and, having been politely received by the Pope, he produced a document containing the royal customs, composed of sixteen chapters, and they were examined and rejected. Finally Thomas returned to England and proceeded undaunted to his agony, and remembering the divine precept, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,”128 he threw open the doors of the church to the royal guards, and fervently commending himself to God, blessed Mary and the patron saints of his church, he received the wounds to his head and obtained the palm of a glorious martyrdom for the law of God and the liberty of the Church. We have excerpted this from Arfold’s Annales Ecclesiae Anglicanae.129
From all this who would not immediately recognize that the deeds of the National Assembly and of Henry II are extremely similar? From the Assembly have flowed decrees arrogating ecclesiastical authority to itself, and by the same Assembly everyone, chiefly the bishops and other clerics, is compelled to swear an oath, and to itself is transferred the promise that bishops tender to the Roman Pontiff. Ecclesiastical estates are seized, as they were by Henry, and their restitution was demanded by St. Thomas. The most Christian king was forced to give his sanction to the decree. Then a declaration was proposed to the Assembly in which the bishops, distinguishing civil from ecclesiastical law, professed that they desired to acknowledge and fulfill the former, and to reject the latter, which they placed outside the power of the Assembly, following the example of the outstanding Christian soldiers who served Julian the Apostate and whom St. Augustine celebrates with these words: “Julian was an infidel emperor, an apostate, a wicked idolator; the soldiers of Christ served an infidel emperor: when it came to the cause of Christ, they acknowledged only Him Who was in heaven. If ever Julian wanted them to worship idols, or burn incense, they put God before him. But when he said, ‘Form the battle-line, attack that people,’ immediately they obeyed, and they distinguished they eternal Lord from the temporal lord.”130 Nevertheless the National Assembly also rejected this declaration, just as Henry II refused to admit the aforementioned clause “their order being preserved.” From the first chapter to the last, the wicked enterprises of the Assembly and of King Henry clearly agree. But the Assembly has imitated not only Henry the Second but also the Eighth, who, when he had usurped the primacy of the English Church, transferred all its power to Cromwell the Zwinglian and declared him his vicar general in spiritual matters, committing to him the task of visiting all the monasteries of the realm. He caused this tour of his province to be conducted by his associate and in all ways likeminded friend Cranmer, taking every care that this ecclesiastical primacy of the king become settled and that all power that the Church had received from the King of heaven, Christ the Lord, as committed to herself only, be acknowledged to reside in him. These very visitations were conducted through the suppression of the monasteries and the sacrilegious ransacking of ecclesiastical goods, and at the same time he satisfied both his hatred for the Roman Pontiff and his greed for possessing the goods of others. As Henry VIII then pretended that the formula of the oath proposed to the bishops contained nothing other than civil and secular obedience and fidelity, while in fact it included the abolition of papal authority, so now the mighty French Assembly, though attaching to its decree the title “On the Civil Constitution of the Clergy,” in fact abrogated all power of the head of the Church, prohibiting the bishops from having anything to do with Us beyond informing Us of what has already been done and completed without Us. Who would not think that the members of the Assembly then had in mind the decrees of kings Henry II and VIII of England, and proposed them as worthy of adoption for their own constitution? For otherwise how could they have achieved such an imitation of these two kings? The only difference is that the recent men are worse than the earlier.
But since We have already compared the acts of the two Henrys and those of the National Assembly, let Us proceed now likewise to compare the bishop of Autun with his colleagues, and lest We tire Ourselves by describing everything minutely, it will suffice to examine the Assembly’s decree itself, by whose words he swore without any exception. For thus We will easily judge the difference between his belief and that of the other bishops. The latter, walking righteously in the law of the Lord, displayed great constancy of mind in maintaining the dogma and doctrine of their predecessors, of adhering to the first See of Peter, in exercising and preserving their rights, in opposing novelties, in awaiting Our reply to learn what they should do. The voice of them all was one and their confession one, just as there is one faith and one tradition and discipline. We were astounded when We saw that the bishop of Autun was unmoved by their examples and arguments. Bossuet, the bishop of Meaux, among you a most celebrated and credible author, used a similar comparison before Us, namely of Thomas of Canterbury on the one hand and Thomas Cranmer on the other, which We think worthy of inserting here, so that those who read it may note how similar it is to Ours:
“St. Thomas of Canterbury resisted wicked kings; Thomas Cranmer prostituted his conscience to them and flattered their depraved passions. The former, driven into exile and despoiled of his goods, having suffered persecution both in his property and in his own person, and afflicted in every way, purchased the glorious liberty of saying the truth as he believed it, manfully despising life and its comforts. The latter, in order to please his prince, spent his whole life in shameful dissimulation and never ceased doing things contrary to his faith. One fought even to the point of shedding blood to assert the least of the rights of the Church, and while he defended her prerogatives, both those that Jesus Christ acquired for her by His blood and those that were granted to her by pious kings, he guarded the exterior things of the holy city. The other gave her most intimate treasures to the kings of the land, namely her preaching, her worship, her sacraments, her keys, her authority, her censures and her very faith; at by the end there is nothing that is not subjected to the yoke, and since all ecclesiastical power is at once delivered to the royal throne, no power is left to the Church besides what it pleases the secular authority to grant her. The former, furthermore, always undaunted, and while he lived always pious, showed even more daring and more piety when he was close to death. The latter, always pusillanimous and timid, was even more so when death drew near, and at age sixty-two, for the sake of the remaining part of his miserable life, threw away his faith and his conscience. Therefore his name is held in contempt among men, and the members of his own flock have no way to excuse him except certain contorted and ingenious rationalizations, which are opposed to the facts. But the glory of St. Thomas of Canterbury will last as long as the Church, and his virtues, which France and England eagerly esteemed, will never pass from memory.”131 Thus Bossuet.
But it is much more wonderful that the bishop of Autun was not overcome by the declaration of the chapter of his cathedral church of December 1 of last year; nor did he blush to incur its blame and to have to be instructed by his clergy, for whom it was his duty to shine by his example and his doctrine. In that declaration the clergy of Autun, supported by the most true principles of the Church, inveighs against the errors of the decree as follows: “The chapter of Autun declares 1. That it formally adheres to the exposition of principles concerning the constitution of the clergy published by the lord bishops deputed to the National Assembly last October 30. It declares 2. without violating its conscience it cannot either directly or indirectly take part in the carrying out of the new constitution proposed to the clergy, and especially in those matters that concern the suppression of cathedral churches, and therefore it will, as before, carry out its sacred canonical duties and satisfy the numerous duties with which its church is burdened until it becomes absolutely impossibly to fulfill them. 3. It declares that it, as the ancient defender of the goods and rights of the episcopate and by virtue of its spiritual jurisdiction, which, when the episcopal see is vacant, devolves to the cathedral churches, it cannot consent to any new circumscription of the diocese of Autun that proceeds from the temporal authority alone.”
Meanwhile We do not wish the bishop of Autun, and with him anyone else who in the meantime may have imitated him by committing perjury, to forget that the bishops who attended the Synod of Ariminum and who subscribed to an ambiguous, captious formula invented by the Arians, by which they were deceived, and terrified by the threats of the emperor Constantius, were warned by the judgment of Pope Liberius that if they persevered in error, they were to be punished with the spiritual vigor of the Catholic Church.132 And by the zeal of St. Hilary of Poitiers, the bishop Saturninus was expelled from the Church of Arles, since he obstinately persisted in the opinion of the Arian bishops.133 Finally, the judgment of Liberius confirmed by St. Damasus was give in a synodical epistle in a council of ninety bishops, that the Easterners too could openly declare that they repent of their error if they wanted to be and to be considered Catholics. “But we believe that those who languish in this struggle should be quickly separated from our communion and the title of bishop removed from them, so that the people might be relieved of their error.”134 It can in no way be denied that the bishop of Autun and his imitators have thrown themselves into the state that came under the judgment of Liberius and Damasus, and therefore, if they do not revoke their oath, they know that they can expect.
What we have to this point examined and thoroughly treated, We have drawn not from Our own mind but from the pure sources of sacred doctrine, as you see. But now We turn to you, Our most dear and beloved Brethren, Our joy and Our crown, although you have not needed the encouragement of any exhortation, since We Ourselves glory in you for your faith in all trials and for your excellent published instructions, and We approve your reasonable dissent from the decree of this Assembly. Nevertheless, because We have arrived at such calamitous state of things, so that even to those who think they stand in the Lord take heed of everything carefully, We exhort you with all possible vigor, Your Excellencies, on account of the office of pastoral care committed to Us, although without any merit of Ours, to preserve the concord of mind among yourselves with all fervor, so that with united zeal, deeds and counsel, with one spirit You might be able, with God’s help, to guard the Catholic religion against the plots and schemes of the new legislators. For as nothing can be more suited for exposing an opening to your adversaries than a disagreement among yourselves, so to shut every entry for them and to avoid every contrivance, nothing is more opportune and effective than the concord and unanimity of your wills. With almost exactly these words St. Pius V, Our predecessor, urged the chapter and canons of the Church of Besançon, which had fallen on similar times. Be therefore of strong and constant mind, and do not abandon your undertaking because of the threat of any dangers, and remember that David responded unafraid to the giant, and Judas Maccabeus replied undaunted to Antiochus—likewise Basil to Valentius, Hilary to Constantius, Ivo of Chartres to King Philip. Now, as belongs to Our duty, We have renewed Our public prayers; We have exhorted the king not to offer his sanction; We have advised the two archbishops who accompanied the king of what they are to do, and in order to disarm and weaken, as much as We could, this so-called third estate, We have ordered the temporary suspension of the exaction of taxes due to Our court by ancient convention and perpetual custom for Our undertakings in France. For this liberality of Ours We have received as a most ungrateful compensation, urged and incited by many members of the Assembly, the rebellion of the Avignonese from the Apostolic See, which We lament and from which We and this Holy See will not cease to call them back. Furthermore, We have restrained Ourselves from declaring the authors of the unfortunate civil constitution of the clergy cut off from the Catholic Church. Finally We have done everything, if somehow by Our leniency and patience We might avoid a deplorable schism and restore peace to you and your nation. But still adhering to the suggestions of paternal charity, which We understood you yourselves proposed for yourselves at the end of your exposition, We ask and beseech you that you explain and declare to Us what you judge We should do to effect the unification of your spirits. We certainly cannot divine this at such a distance, but you who are in the heart of the matter might discover something consonant with Catholic dogma and universal discipline that you could propose to Us for Our deliberation and examination. Finally, let Us pray to God, that He keep such vigilant and wise pastors for Us and for His Church safe and unharmed, and We accompany Our wish with the Apostolic Benediction, which to all of you, Our beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, from the bottom of Our heart We affectionately impart.
Given at Rome at St. Peter’s, the tenth day of March 1791, the seventeenth of Our pontificate.
